by Jean Plaidy
They were up early to make sure that everything was in order by the time the guests arrived. William had spent a great deal on having new bronze pilasters fitted up in the hall and new lamps which hung from an eagle fixed to the ceiling. Several new adornments had been added to the dining room, including some beautiful lamps at the doors, of which he was very proud. ‘George will be interested in these,’ he said. ‘Not that we can compete with Carlton House or the Pavilion, but I think he’ll be impressed. The servants look magnificent in their new liveries.’
His brothers York and Kent had offered their military bands to play in the grounds and this offer had been gratefully accepted.
At five o’clock the party was opened by the arrival of the Prince of Wales, whose glittering presence added grandeur to any celebration. With him came his brothers York, Kent, Sussex and Cambridge and other members of the nobility. They walked about the grounds commenting on the excellence and tasteful displays of the flowers while the bands played Haydn’s Oratorio of The Creation.
This promenade continued for two hours when the bells rang for dinner.
The Prince of Wales had been at Dorothy’s side during most of the promenade and when the bells rang he took her hand and led her to her place at the top table in the dining room. He sat on her right hand and the Duke of York took the place on her left.
There could not have been any more obvious indication that in the Prince’s eyes Dorothy was his sister-in-law the Duchess of Clarence. William looked on with misty eyes at those two whom he loved so well engaged in pleasant animated conversation while he himself took his place at the extreme end of the table.
The discourse about the Prince of Wales continued witty and light-hearted while the most sumptuous foods were passed around and the bands continued to play in the garden just outside the open windows.
The Prince of Wales congratulated Dorothy on many of her performances and talked knowledgeably of the theatre so that it was a pleasure to discuss the merits of plays and players with someone of such discernment. She appreciated the more intellectual approach he could bring to the subject than William was able to; but looking at her lover at the end of the table she believed she was indeed fortunate to have won his affection.
The Prince wanted to hear about the children, particularly George.
‘I daresay they are stationed somewhere not far off,’ said Dorothy, ‘listening to everything that is going on down here.’
‘Could they not come down… for a little while… just to have a look at the company – and to give the company the pleasure of looking at them?’
‘If Your Highness would not be bored with them…’
‘My dearest Dora, bored with my enchanting nephews and nieces! But I adore them… every single one.’
So Dorothy called to one of the liveried attendants and told him that it was the Prince’s wish that the children come to the dining room.
And very soon there they were – all eight of them, led by the intrepid George with Henry marching like a soldier – Sophia, Mary, Frederick, Elizabeth, Molpuss and Augusta. A round of applause, led by the Prince, greeted them. Dorothy found herself weeping with pride in them. They were a healthy, handsome band indeed. They came and made their bows and curtsies to the Prince of Wales who had a word with each of them, and Molpuss almost succeeded in removing the royal diamond shoe buckles so the Prince took the young miscreant on to his knee and fed him with sweetmeats from the table until he was rewarded with a sticky kiss which seemed to please him. Augusta preferred to view her glittering uncle from her mother’s knee, and the children made a delightful domestic contrast to all the grand ceremony of the occasion.
The Prince asked about the youngest of the children, and Dorothy sent a servant to tell the nursemaid to bring down the baby; and young Augustus appeared, somewhat startled, from his bed and everyone exclaimed on his beautiful white hair.
William sat back in his chair, the proud father of such a family.
The public had been allowed to come into the grounds for the occasion and while this pleasant scene was enacted they strolled round and looked in at the windows. They saw the Prince of Wales with a FitzClarence on either knee and the rest of the family amusing the guests. The band went on playing. And the people of Bushy said how pleasant it was to have the Duke of Clarence for a neighbour.
The dinner over, the children retired and the Prince of Wales rose to announce a toast.
‘The Duke of Clarence.’ And when this was drunk he gave ‘The King, the Queen and the Princesses’, followed by ‘The Duke of York and the Army’. When the toasts were drunk the bands played once more and the guests strolled in to the gardens where they mingled with those members of the public who had come in to see them.
It was a happy day, they decided, a worthy celebration of a forty-first anniversary.
When all the guests had gone William and Dorothy together went into the nurseries to see their children, all fast asleep.
‘God bless them and keep them safe,’ murmured Dorothy; and she wondered what Grace would have thought had she been present on this occasion.
It was not the marriage for which she had hoped, but surely even Grace would have been satisfied.
It was hardly to be expected that the birthday party would have been allowed to escape without comment. The extravagance of the entertainment for one thing was taken up by the press.
Cobbet, the editor of The Courier who was constantly attacking the royal family, wrote:
‘The representing of the oratorio of The Creation applied to the purpose of ushering in the numerous family of the Duke of Clarence whereby the procreation of a brood of illegitimate children is put in comparison with the great works of the Almighty, is an act of the most indiscreet disloyalty and blasphemy. We all know that the Duke of Clarence is not married and that therefore if he has children those children must be bastards, and that the father must be guilty of a crime in the eyes of the law as well as of religion…
‘I am confirmed in my opinion when I hear that the Prince of Wales took Mother Jordan by the hand… taking his place upon her right hand, his royal brothers arranging themselves according to their rank on both sides of the table, the post of honour being nearest Mother Jordan, who the last time I saw her cost me eighteenpence in her character of Nell Jobson.’
The King read of the party and almost wept rage and frustration.
‘I help him to pay his debts and what does he do, eh, what? He immediately sets about incurring some more. What can I do with these sons, eh? All very well to honour Mrs Jordan in private… nice little woman… good actress, good mother, so I hear, eh, what? But an affair like this. Think of the cost! What was the cost of that, eh? He’ll be in trouble before long if he goes on like this. Nine children to keep, eh? That place at Bushy. He’ll be in debt, you mark my words, and then who’s going to get him out of trouble, eh, what?’
The Queen replied: ‘There’s one thing he can do.’
‘What’s that, eh, what?’
‘He’ll do what George did before him. He’ll have to marry. Then the Parliament will settle his debts and his income will be increased and he’ll be in time, I hope, to give the family some legitimate children.’
‘But it won’t do. Debts. Extravagance. The people are not so fond of us. There was that bullet. It wouldn’t take much… I think of France. Sometimes I don’t sleep all night thinking of France… and those boys. Could be a difficult situation. Should be careful. Shouldn’t have parties. Shouldn’t drink and gamble. Shouldn’t show off their women. People don’t like it.’
‘I can see the day coming,’ said the Queen, ‘when William will be in the same position as George was. Then he will have to marry – and marry the wife who is chosen for him.’
The Queen’s warning
THE IDYLLIC SCENE at Bushy was too good to last. The usual troubles arose. William could never understand that what he bought would eventually have to be paid for. The cost of his birthday party had been en
ormous; he had had no idea it would be so expensive.
Dorothy frowned over the bills. ‘You couldn’t possibly have spent so much.’
‘It’s all there, all set out,’ he replied irritably. His gout was bad that morning. It always was when he was agitated.
‘But we’re almost as much in debt as we were before you paid off that £20,000.’
‘Am I to be blamed because the price of things is so high?’
The decorations to the house had not been necessary. It had been beautiful as it was. So much of the expensive food had not been eaten.
She pointed this out.
‘My dear Dora, I fancy I have more experience of entertaining Princes than you have. Not to have given of the very best would have been an insult to the Prince of Wales.’
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders. It was no use continuing with recriminations. They had to find the money – or some of it – enough to keep their creditors quiet for a time.
There was only one thing to do.
She must return to work. On a cold January day she opened at Drury Lane as Peggy in The Country Girl.
She was as popular as ever in the early parts, which was amazing considering she was almost fifty years old. She often felt ill; the pain in her chest had grown worse and she was spitting blood again. But the audience was faithful. She could still charm them; she had that indefinable quality which the years could not destroy. Dorothy Jordan was a draw again.
There was the money – always the money. They would manage somehow as long as she worked.
One evening she found Fanny in the Green Room, an excited Fanny, with a secret she was bubbling over to tell.
‘Mamma,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be married.’
Dorothy embraced her daughter. At last she had found a husband! Poor Fanny was about to enter that state which Dorothy herself for all her genius, for all that she had thirteen children – little Amelia had been born to bring the FitzClarence children to ten in number – had never been able to achieve.
‘Who is he?’ she asked.
‘Well, Mamma, he is not in a very good position. He has a post in the Ordnance Office.’
‘A clerk.’
‘Oh, I know that is not to be compared with a duke, but at least he can marry me. And a clerk in a government office like the Ordnance is no ordinary clerk.’
‘That’s true,’ said Dorothy. ‘And are you happy, my darling?’
Fanny nodded. Of course she was happy. She had found a man willing to marry her. She had thought she never would and she was twenty-six years old.
‘Then I am happy, too,’ said Dorothy.
She was less contented when she met Thomas Alsop; she could not rid herself of the uneasy feeling that he had heard of the dowry which was to be Fanny’s when she married. He would know of course that she was the daughter of Dorothy Jordan and there had too been all that publicity when she had inherited the Bettesworth money.
However, Fanny was happy and determined on marriage so preparations must go on.
When she told William of the forthcoming marriage he was not so pleased. The dowry would have to be provided, £10,000 in all. £2,000 was to be paid to the husband on the marriage and the rest at £200 a year. Dorothy had managed to invest in an annuity which would provide for Fanny, but she had been obliged to lend the money which she had saved for the other girls to William; and the fact that she would have to ask for this in the event of the others marrying worried her – and him.
His gout flared up, he was touchy and irritable. A gloom had settled over Bushy House.
But the marriage of Fanny to Thomas Alsop took place and it was arranged that Hester with Dodee and Lucy should share a house they had acquired in Park Place.
This was settled, but somewhat uneasily; and as she was now working hard in the theatre and not feeling very well, Dorothy was beset by fears of the future.
Soon after Fanny’s marriage Dodee was betrothed to another clerk of the Ordnance Office, whom Thomas had brought to the house. He was Frederick Edward March, a natural son of Lord Henry Fitzgerald.
‘We plan to get married soon, Mamma,’ said Dodee.
Dorothy said she was delighted to see her daughter so happy; and then she began to think about the money.
She had found Fanny’s dowry but Dodee’s would be another matter. It was going to be necessary to ask William to return the money he had borrowed.
He was not well, and he always hated talking of money. There was something undignified, he always felt, when a member of the royal family was asked to pay. The Prince of Wales felt the same; but he dismissed these matters with an elegant shrug and allowed the debts to mount until they were of such proportions that only the Government could settle them for him. Then they came up with conditions. It was such a condition which had brought him to marriage with the wife he loathed.
Marriage, thought William. What if they were to demand it of him!
Perhaps Dorothy did not understand this.
‘I have promised the girls this money,’ cried Dorothy in distraction. ‘I must have it. Everything else must be put aside but I must have it.’
‘They will have to wait for their money like everyone else.’
‘Not the dowry, William. They must have it.’
‘What about their father?’
She drew back as if he had struck her. It was not like William to refer to those unfortunate incidents in her life. She had thought he understood them. She had told him of the persecution of Daly, her devotion to Richard Ford and the latter’s promise to marry her.
‘I could not ask him now.’
‘Why not. He’s comfortably placed. Sir Richard now – and didn’t he marry a rich wife?’
‘I would not ask him,’ she said. ‘I have promised this dowry. You must let me have it. I have your bond.’
There was nothing that could infuriate him more than the reference to a bond. He owed her money, he admitted it. He believed it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of £30,000, but to think that she could refer to the bond in that way. As though she were a moneylender.
‘So what will you do?’ he demanded. ‘Send me to a debtors’ prison?’
‘William, I only meant…’
‘I know full well what you meant, Madam Shylock. I have had money from you… which you were pleased to give me and now I must repay it. It says so in the bond.’
She was distraught. So was he. He hated to see her so worried. But he thought of all the creditors who were crying out to be paid. So how could he let her have the money he owed her?
His frustration whipped up his temper. He was saying things he did not mean, unkind things which were untrue; and she had turned and hurried away.
They were reconciled afterwards but the question of money was between them. It hung over them and would not be dismissed.
He would find the money, he declared, if he had to go to the moneylender he would find it.
‘I must take more engagements,’ she said. ‘I shall work all through the season if I can get them.’
George was now fourteen and William had said he should join the Army as a Cornet.
‘He’s far too young,’ she argued.
‘Nonsense!’ retorted William. ‘I was sent to sea when I was thirteen. It did me no harm.’
So she lost her darling George, and not only did he become a soldier but one on active service. She was distracted when he was sent out to Spain to join Sir John Moore’s army. This made a further rift between herself and William, because she blamed him for sending George away at such an early age.
There was the continual round at the theatre. She had to go on stage and play parts like Miss Hoyden, for which she felt far too old and tired when all the time she was conscious of great anxieties. What was happening in the Alsop household? Would Dodee be happy? Would William be able to find the money? What when Lucy’s turn came? What of George – such a boy to be thrust into battle!
In May of that year there were riots among the we
avers of Manchester. The military were called in to deal with them and two people were killed while several were wounded.
In September Covent Garden was burned down and the rumour was that the fire had been started on purpose. The roof collapsed and nineteen people were killed; the losses were tremendous and a shudder of horror ran through the theatrical world.
Dorothy was concerned about George, for young as he was he was engaged in the battle of Corunna where Sir John Moore the commander was killed. As news of the battle reached home she was frantic with anxiety and so was William until news came of George’s safety. This brought them close together again; and Dorothy was at least grateful for that.
That January there was another spectacular fire. It occurred in St James’s Palace and this was declared to be very strange following on the burning of Covent Garden; and as that part of St James’s which suffered was the royal apartments, some significance was attached to this.
The Queen said: ‘It was done purposely. I always said people would not endure the Princes’ behaviour. Our sons will not do their duty. Just think – there is not one who is respectably married. At least the King and Queen of France were that. At least they had legitimate children.’
The Princesses were in a state of nervous anxiety. Amelia was growing steadily more and more feeble and the King asked every few minutes what the doctors had said about her and had to be told, untruthfully, that she was in good health. The tension in the royal household was mounting; it was very bad for the King.
At the beginning of February the New Sessions House at Westminster was burned down. There was clearly a dangerous arsonist at work. But was this the work of one person? Was it intended as a warning? The Queen was sure that it was. The King was becoming so vague that he was not sure of anything.
Then there was real panic in the royal family for the biggest scandal since the Delicate Investigation broke upon them.
The trouble had begun with the startling revelations that a woman named Mary Anne Clarke, who had been a mistress of the Duke of York, had been selling commissions in the Army – which his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Army gave her the opportunity of doing.